Question about hard drives older xraid

We have an "older" XRaid stocked with 14 250 GB drives, connected to an xserve with fiber channel. Our premium Applecare agreement for the XRaid expired a few months ago. Prior to that, when a drive would fail, I would simply get a replacement from Apple, but I always kept a good spare drive in a drive module so that I could swap it in while waiting for the new module. I expect some drives to start failing as they get older, and buying drives in Apple drive modules is very expensive (over $600 for a 250 GB drive, if you can even find them). So my plan is to just buy bare drives and pop them into the existing drive modules when needed. My questions are:
Are these drives ATA's or SATA's?
What is the maximum drive size that each drive can be? Can I pull out all 7 drives on one side or the other and replace them with, say, 500 GB drives? (obviously I would have to re-init the array). Any help would be appreciated.

>Are these drives ATA's or SATA's?
The XServe RAID uses ATA 133 drives.
> What is the maximum drive size that each drive can be?
That depends on the firmware version. If you haven't updated the firmware since you got the machine, then 250GB is as big as you can go. If up update the firmware you can use 750GB drives (the largest drive currently available in the XServe RAID).
> I pull out all 7 drives on one side or the other and replace them with, say, 500 GB drives?
If you're not worried about warranty/support or the integrity of your data, sure. Lots of people have reported success doing this. Just be careful regarding the drives you get. Do NOT jump on the cheapest, nastiest drive you can find - there's a reason why that 750GB drive costs $99. All drives are NOT the same. You need to make sure you get server-rated drives. Most consumer/home drives are rated for something like 50,000 hours MBTF at 20% utilization (your home machine isn't always on, and is often idle even when it is on). By comparison, server drives have a much higher MTBF at a higher utilization (as much as 500,000 hours at 80% utilization).
If you don't care about drive failures then you can use the cheaper drives, just be prepared to deal with the failures.
Also, make sure you get identical make/model drives for al disks in the array. Mismatching drives in an array is going to cause a huge performance hit since the drives are not in sync.

Similar Messages

Very basic questions about hard drives

I'm upgrading from vintage Beige G3, so much of the jargon about internal drives is new to me.
My MacPro will come with an OEM 160 GB drive. I will use this for my primary boot drive -- OS and Apps. All my data, photo files etc. will be kept on my second/third drives. I do not plan any sort of RAID setup. Windows is going nowhere near my Mac.
For the extra drives --
1) SATA? SATA II? What's the difference and is it critical?
1a) What is a "raptor" drive?
2) Does size matter (we're talking about GBs here, guys...)
3) Reliability is more important to me than speed or noise. We're a long long way from any technical help or even UPS.
4) Do new drives need to be formatted before using them internally?
5) If I partition one of the extra drives so I can keep a clean, backup OS boot partition, I need to format it as GUID, correct? Or does that just apply to external firewire boot drives? Does it matter which partition will be the boot partition?
6) I've read discussions about firmware requirements for some drives. What's that all about?
I was leaning toward MaxLine Pro 500 GB drives, but have been reading (reading too much, perhaps?) and now have all the above questions/concerns. (Whatever happened to the good ol' days of "buy an IDE drive, insert, play"?)
Thanks for your patience with these questions. I need to get it right the first time because of our remoteness!

1. SATA 1 interface speed rated at 1.5 Gb/s; SATA II interface speed rated at 3.0 Gb/s.
2. Drive ratings/performance is determined by many factors. You can best find out about individual drive performance by visiting http://www.storagereview.com/ to see their benchmark results on various drives. You will also find some helpful comparisons at http://www.barefeats.com/.
3. As for drive specs see previous answer. Generally speaking within any manufacturer's category of drive models for a given size the fastest drive will be the most expensive. Manufacturer specs usually do not provide any idea about drive performance in real world situations. Only benchmark comparisons are really useful, and even those can be confusing.
4. Yes, you can boot an Intel Mac from an APM partitioned drive. You simply cannot install OS X from the installer disc because it will refuse to install on a drive that has not been GUID partitioned.
5. Some older Seagate 750 GB models were not working properly when installed in a RAID configuration on Mac Pro computers. Seagate provided a firmware update to fix the problem for those who already owned the affected drives.
I don't know where you got the idea that Intel Macs were "picky about such things." Nor that installing drives in a beige G3 was a no-brainer. The old beige G3 required a lot of mechanical effort to mount a new drive internally. You not only had to connect all the various cables, but if you had two drives on the same ribbon cable each drive had to be jumpered properly - one as MASTER and one as SLAVE. Some older ATA hard drives had two different jumper settings for a MASTER - MASTER solo and MASTER w/SLAVE. Some beige G3 models wouldn't even boot OS X unless it was installed on a MASTER drive. And, you could not install OS X on a large drive except by partitioning the drive with an 8 GB partition for OS X that had to be the first partition on the drive. RAIDs may work or not depending on if you ran OS 9 or OS X. At least to me that wasn't the "good old days" unless you were comparing installing ATA drives to dealing with SCSI. I would say that in your particular case you were lucky, and you never tried putting two drives on the same ribbon cable. Oh, and I forgot about the size limiting jumper on most ATA large drives to limit capacity to 32 GBs because that's all that was supported by FAT32. Oh, yes, and the beige G3's disk controller did not support drives larger than 128 GBs.

Question about hard drive, need help lol.

Hey I'm kinda new to the MacBook world and have a stupid question. I am getting a late 2009 MacBook unibody (white polycarbonate, model MacBook 6.1... I believe) I am switching the original 250gb 5400 rpm hard drive out for a Seagate Momentus XT 750gb 7400 rpm hybrid hard drive. I want to keep everything on the original hard drive and just pop the new hard drive and start fresh with Snow Leopard. I'm going to purchase the SL cd from apple but I do not have the original grey start up cd that came with it (my girlfriends little sister lost it). Do I need to call apple for that cd in order to start fresh on my new hard drive or is everything I need on the SL cd?
Also how do I go about wiping the whole computer when I put the hard drive in and use SL? I want to essentially have a completely clean laptop with a new hard drive.
Thanks for your help in advance.

The SL disc you get from Apple will do everything you need. When you nstall the new hard drive there will be nothing to wipe, the drive is the only piece of that Mac hat stores anything so you don't need to worry about that. Post back and let me know how that hybrid drive works out....I'm interested.

Questions about Hard Drive Replacement

I am debating putting in a new Hard Drive 100GB. I am not very technical but have changed memory in my MacBook to 1GB. I am a bit nervous about doing this. I have read the Apple Doc on doing it and was wondering about the tab. How does the tab connect to the new drive? Is it all as easy as it looks? Just pop the old one out, put the new one in and reboot holding down the c key? Reformat the drive and then install osx? I was wondering how many people have already done it and their experiences with it? Thanks

On a MacBook, the HD swap is very simple. Because the drive is SATA, the connections are sturdier than former ATA drives and you don't have to worry about snapping off the connecting pins.
The white "tab" used to pull the drive is just a piece of thin plastic glued onto the tray. Not the most sturdy stuff, but it'll do it's job. When you pull, just pull straight out - don't twist or turn the tab! Same goes for inserting the new drive: push straight in so it stays aligned with the rubber mounting rails.
*If you want to save the data, the best way to install a new hard drive is to:
1. Buy the new drive AND an external firewire case (USB will also work)
2. Put the new drive in the external case
3. Use "Carbon Copy Cloner" to duplicate your existing drive to the external one
4. Physically swap the drives and OSX should boot from your newly installed drive as if nothing changed.
Once you upgrade to a 7200RPM, the following things will be noticeably faster:
System Startup
Opening of any application
Anything that requires lots of HD reading/writing.
The last category includes any video/sound editing, such as Garageband, iMovie and iDVD. Shuffling through your iPhoto collection should also be faster. You might not notice the difference though, since the MacBook is already pretty fast
I would definitely couple it with a ram upgrade as well. With a large amount of physical ram, the HD upgrade won't make as much of a difference.

Question about Hard drive Space and Logic Pro

We just installed Logic Pro 7.2 (and Tiger) onto our Dual G4. We have nearly filled the bootup drive, with tonnes of space on our other hard drives (80GB and 100GB). With only ~4 GB left on the startup drive, will this cause problems with Logic Pro? We have more than the recommended RAM, but I was wondering if the hard drive space might be an issue, like with iDVD where you need ~8-10 GB free to burn a DVD.
I've been considering copying things over from my startup drive to my 80GB drive (which has tiger on it too)and making the 80 GB drive my new startup drive, but it's a bit of work and if I don't need to do it right away I don't want to bother. What is the recommended amount of free hard drive space and memory for Logic Pro to work well? I personally like to have ~10GB free for anything, but that might be tricky at this point. I want to know if I should go through with the hassle of moving things over or wait a bit and see how it goes. I've not ahd a chance to use the program yet, but I'd like to set it up and keep it working smoothly once I start to use it. Any advice or experience from anyone in this department?

Your best off having at least 25% free space of any hard drive.
With Logic, It is a good idea (though not necessary) to have your OS and apps on one HD, and your song files and samples (and other files) on another. I would also suggest that you get a hard drive with a speed of at least 7200rpms.

Question about hard drive space used

If I run OmniDiskSweeper to sweep my 15" G4 laptop hard drive, the total file size calculated is 31.3 GB. Likewise, if I clone the hard drive to an external drive using SuperDuper!, the total size used on the external drive is 31.3 GB.
However, if I "Get Info" on the laptop hard drive, the Used size listed is 41.9 GB. Likewise, 41.6 GB is listed as "used" in the OmniDiskSweeper Drive List window, as well as in another utility. I suspect that the 41.6 value is picked up from the Finder.
What could be the reason that Get Info lists the space used on the hard drive as 10 GB larger than the total size of the files?
1.5 GHZ PowerPC G4 Mac OS X (10.4.9)
Dual 2 GHz G5 Mac OS X (10.4.4)

Hmm, I think I have a possible answer. I had to download OmniDiskSweeper and open the help from its Help menu to get this answer.
It says in the help for OmniDiskSweeper:
"OmniDiskSweeper only displays files that you have access to from the user account you are logged into. Files in restricted folders are not available and their sizes are not included in the total file sizes you see."
So, if you have other user accounts, then those files won't necessarily be readable and hence not counted in OmniDiskSweeper. There may also be a few system files and folders that might be unreadable and hence not counted. That should be fine since you probably shouldn't be randomly deleting system files.
I've also noticed that OmniDiskSweeper shows slight variations of total sizes in its different windows, so it's not too precise. That probably comes from the dynamic nature of hard drive use by the computer, and OmniDiskSweeper trying not to use too many cpu cycles updating incessantly. Just guessing on that part though.
The 10GB is most likely other user accounts or something else not readable from your own account. The Finder lets you know of course, but OmniDiskSweeper only presents to you what you have permission to access. That doesn't necessarily mean you'll also have permission to delete those things.

Question about hard drive

My macbook pro recently suffered water damage but I was able to get the hard drive out and plug it into an enclosure. When I try to open a file it says "The folder ... can't be opened because you don't have permission to see its contents." Is there any way to put a password in or get around this?

Thanks, But if I'd like to delete this stuff from the old hard, how would I be able to make it so I can access these files?
Also, is there any way I'd be able to connect the hard drive from my old macbook to a PC?

Questions regarding Hard Drive and RAM upgrade

I just purchased a Macbook white (Late 2006 model) for my son off ebay. I know next to nothing about hard drives and RAM.
I only paid $400 for this thing so I'm willing to put some extra cash into it.
What is the maximum hard drive I can put in this thing? Also, does the size of the hard drive depend on the amount of RAM I can put in it?
Like I said, I dont know very much about this stuff at all. Could someone please give me specific examples of the size hard drive & RAM I can put in.
Thank you.

Replacing the Hard Drive and RAM is very easy. Apple has a PDF file with instructions for replacing a hard drive and RAM. You'll need a #0 phillips screwdriver for the "L" bracket and a Torx 6 driver for the caddy screws.
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/MacBook13inch_HardDriveDIY.pdf
http://manuals.info.apple.com/enUS/MacBook_13inch_MemoryDIY.pdf

####a question about jdbc driver

A question about jdbc driver: for Oracle JDBC drivers which will not allow O/R
tools to access columns over 4 kb. This affects some of the functionality of my
application.A workaround is to use the my JDBC driver that acts as a wrapper to
ensure that columns over 4 kb read and persist properly. my JDBC driver determines
which actual driver to load based on the connection URL. If you pass in a URL
that contains the string jdbc:oracle:thin, it will know to load oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver.
If the URL contains the string jdbc:db2, it will know to load COM.ibm.db2.jdbc.net.DB2Driver,
and so on.
now i have set CLASSPATH for my jdbc wapper,when I Creating and Configuring a
JDBC Connection Pool,i have to input my driver name such com.lawrence.driver.....then
i did,all
is well,then i restart my WLS,when load config.xml,some errors such as "No registered
driver accept URL:jdbc:oracle:thin:@localhost:1521:lawrence",if i set driver name
is oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver,all is good,no any errors.
I find some questions like:
1.for WLS8.1 ,it is only find some registed driver?
2.why it cannot load my driver wapper when it is loading jdbc Connection Pool,but
when the WLS start is finished, i Creating and Configuring a JDBC Connection Pool
then it is right?

my JDBC driver like this:
public class myDriver implements Driver {
     public static String DB2_DRIVER = "COM.ibm.db2.jdbc.net.DB2Driver";
     public static String DB2_URL = "jdbc:db2:";
     public static String HYPERSONIC_DRIVER = "org.hsqldb.jdbcDriver";
     public static String HYPERSONIC_URL = "jdbc:hsqldb:";
     public static String MYSQL_DRIVER = "com.mysql.jdbc.Driver";
     public static String MYSQL_URL = "jdbc:mysql:";
     public static String ORACLE_DRIVER = "oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver";
     public static String ORACLE_URL = "jdbc:oracle:";
     public static String POSTGRESQL_DRIVER = "org.postgresql.Driver";
     public static String POSTGRESQL_URL = "jdbc:postgresql:";
     public static String SQLSERVER_DRIVER =
          "com.microsoft.jdbc.sqlserver.SQLServerDriver";
     public static String SQLSERVER_URL = "jdbc:microsoft:";
     public boolean acceptsURL(String url) throws SQLException {
          return true;
     public synchronized Connection connect(String url, Properties props)
          throws SQLException {
          if (_driver == null) {
               Class driverClass = null;
               try {
                    if (url.startsWith(DB2_URL)) {
                         driverClass = Class.forName(DB2_DRIVER);
                    else if (url.startsWith(HYPERSONIC_URL)) {
                         driverClass = Class.forName(HYPERSONIC_DRIVER);
                    else if (url.startsWith(MYSQL_URL)) {
                         driverClass = Class.forName(MYSQL_DRIVER);
                    else if (url.startsWith(ORACLE_URL)) {
                         driverClass = Class.forName(ORACLE_DRIVER);
                    else if (url.startsWith(POSTGRESQL_URL)) {
                         driverClass = Class.forName(POSTGRESQL_DRIVER);
                    else if (url.startsWith(SQLSERVER_URL)) {
                         driverClass = Class.forName(SQLSERVER_DRIVER);
                    _driver = (Driver)driverClass.newInstance();
               catch (Exception e) {
                    throw new SQLException(e.getMessage());
          Connection con = _driver.connect(url, props);
          return new myConnection(con);
     public int getMajorVersion() {
          return _driver.getMajorVersion();
     public int getMinorVersion() {
          return _driver.getMinorVersion();
     public DriverPropertyInfo[] getPropertyInfo(String url, Properties props)
          throws SQLException {
          return _driver.getPropertyInfo(url, props);
     public boolean jdbcCompliant() {
          return _driver.jdbcCompliant();
     private Driver _driver;

What does Apple HW Test really test about hard drive?

My 2002 FP iMac was recently jolted. The internal hard drive is no longer recognized. Here is what I know:
When I boot with the Apple Hardware Test CD which came with the computer, it does not recognize anything wrong with the hard drive.
When I boot from an external hard drive, I get a dialog with buttons to Initialize, Ignore, or Eject the hard drive.
When I open Disk Utility (external HD boot), it can see the disk, but says it is unformatted.
I also downloaded a trial data recovery program and it could not find anything identifiable on the hard drive.
I don't really know what the Apple Hardware Test program tests with the hard drive, so I don't know how to interpret the information I have.
My questions:
Is there any hope for salvaging anything from the hard drive? (Probably not?)
Is the drive itself likely to be OK if I format and re-install my OS? (Is that what the HW Test is telling me?)
I have not tried to format the drive, because there are a few things I would really like to salvage. I have also not opened it up to examine anything on the inside because I would not know what to look for.
Suggestions for how to proceed will be welcome.

The data on the ill-fated hard drive may be recoverable; could be
there has been damage to the drive or the software on it that lets
the computer read files from the drive.
Some disk utilities such as Disk Warrior could see about trying to
fix the drive; although if physical damages exist, it can't fix that.
The booted OS X Installer's Disk Utility has options in the Installer
menu bar (drop down menu to select other things, when not just
reinstalling) and you could see if OS X's Disk Utility from the booted
Installer disc could give you a status report on the drive in Verify, &
also see what it says about 'Repair drive' when chosen to try a fix.
Sometimes, the OS X's Disk Utility can't fix something, and at that
point, other utilities (retail on DVD) may be able to. Then, the tossup
is, whether or not you want to pay for the utility to fix an old drive, or
put the money into a new one.
Data Recovery software is available as download, so if the old hard
disk drive were removed from the computer and a new drive put in,
later on the failed drive could be investigated through use of software
(such as those which can recover, then you pay to unlock results)
and that is another way to consider addressing the old drive contents.
Some would suggest, if you had Disk Warrior or some other disk utility
that could fix the old drive good enough to try and get data off it, maybe
even a full clone or just the files you need, then you would not need to
get the data recovery software. Of course, that software which runs to
see if you have recoverable files, can do that part for free.
The AHT may see the drive is present, while not recognizing a
failure in its firmware or in its directory, etc. Some kinds of disk
utilities can try to rebuild and replace a damaged directory or
other bits of software on the drive so it can be read again.
Usually, the test for the hard disk drive is Disk Utility on the
OS X Installer; and that gives you the boot version that sees
even a healthy drive as an unmounted and repairable volume
when it is correct and not beyond the limited ability of the utility.
Hopefully something practical comes from all these words...
Good luck & happy computing!

Time MACHINE question regarding hard drive restore...

Ok so i need to restore a hard drive with time machine. im going to be wiping my imac HD for a fresh install, hopefully things will run a little quicker. its seeming a little laggy these days. what im worried about with time machine though is that its going to restore all the little fragments of past installed/uninstalled programs and certain logs and settings ect.. the things that are currently bogging down the system. i know that time machine has a list of exclusions of what it doesnt restore.. but do i have to worry at all about time machine installing these things that i dont want? i would much rather just manually restore the system if this is going to be the case.
also, if i would manually restore the system from the time machine drive, i dont think i can just drag and drop backup folders from time machine and then pick and choose individual files and folders can i?
any help would be much appreciated!
just a heads up.. please dont reply if you're giving me your opinion because you enjoyed your experience with time machine restoration. im looking for fact and reality of what time machine does and does not restore. thank you

D00bysnacks wrote:
Ok so i need to restore a hard drive with time machine. im going to be wiping my imac HD for a fresh install, hopefully things will run a little quicker. Its seeming a little laggy these days.
That's rather a drastic step, which most likely won't help much, if any. Unlike with Windoze, you're usually better off to diagnose and fix the actual problem. See Baltwo's post here: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=11853228&#11853228
what im worried about with time machine though is that its going to restore all the little fragments of past installed/uninstalled programs and certain logs and settings ect.. the things that are currently bogging down the system. i know that time machine has a list of exclusions of what it doesnt restore.. but do i have to worry at all about time machine installing these things that i dont want?
If you tell Time Machine to do a full system restore, yes, it will do that. With certain exceptions, such as system work files, trash, most caches and logs, it will put your system back just as it was. That's it's purpose, after all.
i would much rather just manually restore the system if this is going to be the case.
Really? See the pink box in #11 Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions. Actually, it would be worse, if you don't use +Migration Assistant+ for your data.
also, if i would manually restore the system from the time machine drive, i dont think i can just drag and drop backup folders from time machine and then pick and choose individual files and folders can i?
You can't restore OSX that way. You can copy your data, but that may not work in all cases, and you'll likely have all sorts of permissions problems, as OSX will think the backups belong to a different user.
just a heads up.. please dont reply if you're giving me your opinion because you enjoyed your experience with time machine restoration. im looking for fact and reality of what time machine does and does not restore. thank you
You want free help, but only if it agrees with your version of reality? That's pretty cheeky.

Some more details about hard drives with a T410s

Hi all,
So, needless to say, my T410s uses a 100 GB 1.8" Internal hard drive. The 1.8" drives are seeming to be harder find and more expensive by the day. I have recently purchased and installed the ultrabay hard drive adapter so I now have some questions about it's use:
- My 1.8" internal has 2.5 GB Free (Yikes!)
- Does anyone have any reccomendations as to the how to best put the new ultra bay drive to use? i.e. Transfer program files to run from it, boot from it...etc.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
- Patrick

I'd consider imaging everything over to the bigger drive and just removing the 1.8". One drive is better on power consumption than two, of course.
Consider enabling NTFS compression on the drive too; it's basically disk space for free.
W520: i7-2720QM, Q2000M at 1080/688/1376, 21GB RAM, 500GB + 750GB HDD, FHD screen
X61T: L7500, 3GB RAM, 500GB HDD, XGA screen, Ultrabase
Y3P: 5Y70, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, QHD+ screen

Easy Question--External Hard Drive

My new iMac 24" will arrive in a day or two.
Here is the question:
I'm comming from XP (puke). All my photo's and iTunes music is on an external Maxtor UBS hard drive. Will I be able to plug the Maxtor into the iMac UBS and get my music and photo's???? Will the iMac OS recconnize the Maxtor?? The rest of the "stuff" on the external I'm not worried about.
Gotta have my "tunes & Photo's".
Thanks...... Man,,, NO MORE XP BLUES!

YA-HOOOOOOOOO,,,,
That means that I will be able to "copy & paste" the music and Photo's on to the iMac drive??
WOW,,, what a releive!!! BIG thanks!!! You know,, in Windows, I was always afraid to even sneeze around the computer 'cause it would screw up.
Now, first thing I can get my "jams" playing!!!!

File Folder with Question Mark: Hard Drive Failure?

I did a search on this topic in these forums, so I think I know what's going on but want to confirm:
I shut down my MacBook Pro this morning and tried restarting it but got a blinking file folder with a question mark. Tried to restart from Disk Warrior (pressing C while restarting) but got the same thing.
Does this mean my hard drive has failed and there's no remedy I can try myself?

The flashing question mark is usually a sign that the hard drive has failed and drives can fail at any point, yours may simply have some bad sectors; it could also be the logic board. It should boot from the DiskWarrior disk though. Try again.

Quick question about showing drive space

Hi,
Just got a quick query about showing remaining drive space on the desktop.
Before I wiped my Pismo and reinstalled Tiger (bad kernel panic), my hard drive and any other connected drives (pen drive, iPod, iDisk, etc) showed up on my Desktop with the name and drive capacity and remaining space underneath the icon.
Now I've reinstalled, the drive capacity and remaining space don't show up on the Desktop, and I can't find how to turn it on. I've been through Preferences several times and can't find an obvious switch. Have I missed something? I'm running Tiger 10.4.8 with the machine spec below.
Thanks in advance,
Rob Johnson

Sometimes, for no obvious reason, the Finder can be slow to update. And sometimes it updates instantly. Why? "Only the Shadow knows...." or maybe the Apple programmers.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

Question about hard drives older xraid

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